1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to desalination and more particularly to an improved desalinating process.
2. Description of Related Art
It is estimated that there are about 1.4×1,018 tons of water on earth in which about 97.5% is salty sea water and the remaining about 2.5% is fresh water. As to fresh water, about 98% thereof exists on North and South Poles and the Iceland. It is known that water is gradually becoming a rare source in recent years due to population increase, pollution in rivers and lakes, excessive logging of rain forests, environmental disasters, green house effect, etc. As such, desalination has become an important issue. Conventionally, desalination is done by either heating sea water by means of solar energy or distilling sea water by means of boilers. For the former technique, it can save energy. But its production is low. For the latter technique, it can produce fresh water in a large scale. But it also can consume much energy. Moreover, maintenance of boilers is labor intensive. In brief, the cost of prior desalination is very high, thus limiting the applications of desalination.
It is known that a volume of ice is about 1.09 times of that of water (i.e., an increase of volume about 1.09 times). As known that water can be expressed as H2O in a chemical form in which two atoms of hydrogen (H) are combined with one atom of oxygen (O), i.e., there is a hydrogen bond in water molecule. Also, atoms H—O—H are arranged in a substantially straight line. A large gap is thus formed between two water molecules due to the above arrangement. To the contrary, a close packing is done if there is no hydrogen bond in water molecule. For example, about 50% of water molecules are formed by hydrogen bonds in room temperature while about 100% of ice molecules are formed by hydrogen bonds. In other words, the higher percentage of the hydrogen bonds in water molecules means the larger of gap between two water molecules. This means that gaps in ice are larger than that in water. In this regard, ice is larger than water in volume in a case that ice and water have the same weight.
It is known that an ice bar (e.g., Popsicle) is formed of sugar and water. Sugar is first sucked into the mouth while eating an ice bar. As such, ice in the ice bar will become tasteless in subsequent suctions. This is because sugar molecule in the form of solid and ice (i.e., a solid form of water) are combined together in a form of compound. As a result, a structural strength of the sugar and ice compound is very weak. Moreover, sugar molecules exist in gaps of ice molecules because, as stated above, the gaps in ice are larger than that in water. In addition, sugar and ice have different specific weights. That is why sugar along with a small amount of water is first sucked into the mouth while eating an ice bar. Hence, ice in the ice bar will become tasteless in subsequent suctions.
Likewise, the main ingredient of sea water is salt. Sea water is salty because salt is dissolved in water. A frozen temperature of sea water is from about −20° C. to about −15° C. Ice has a smaller density when sea water is frozen because salt is dissolved in water. That is, ice formed by sea water has a loose structure. In other words, ice is similar to a compressed snow ball. Hence, salt and a small amount of water will be easily separated from ice cubes of sea water when a centrifugal force is exerted on the ice cubes of sea water or a sucking is done on the ice cubes of sea water. The present invention is made possible as the present inventor takes advantage of the above principles.